The Francis M. Wheat Award ($500) honors the best demonstration of significant scholarship in the Southern California Quarterly by an established historian.
Carl Irving Wheat, born in Massachusetts, graduated with honors from Pomona College in 1915. After a tour of duty with the ambulance service in France in 1917, Wheat graduated from Harvard Law School in 1920. He became the first editor when the organization’s annual publication became the Southern California Quarterly in March 1935. He published extensively on California history, including the five volume Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West, 1540-1861 and Books of the California Gold Rush. He was one of the first members of the Zamorano Club and served as director of the California Historical Society and was editor of its Quarterly, making him one of the sole figures to be editor of two California historical journals.
Francis (Frank) Millspaugh Wheat was born in Los Angeles, and like his father Carl he attended Pomona College. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1942 and then earned a master’s degree from Harvard’s School of Business Administration. He was a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, serving in Europe and the Pacific. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1948. A Los Angeles securities lawyer, Frank Wheat was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1964 to 1969. He was a founding member and co-chair of the California Commission on Campaign Financing and served as a member of the California Citizens Budget Committee. Frank Wheat worked in support of the California Desert Protection Act (1994) and published California Desert Miracle: The Fight for Desert Parks and Wilderness in 1999.
In 2001, an award originally named for Carl Irving Wheat was revised and endowed as the Francis M. Wheat Award.
The award is selected by the editorial board. There is no application or nomination process. From 2018, the award will be given in even numbered years.
Award Recipients
2022
Anne Soon Choi, “The Japanese American Citizens League, Los Angeles Politics, and the Thomas Noguchi Case,” Southern California Quarterly 2020-2021 (Volumes 102 and 103)
2020
Stacey L. Smith, “Dred Scott on the Pacific: African Americans, Citizenship, and Subjecthood in the North American West,” Southern California Quarterly 100, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 5-43.
Honorable Mention
Stephanie Hinnershitz, “The 1942 Santa Anita Detainment Center Labor Strike and Japanese American Incarceration during World War II,” Southern California Quarterly 101, no. 3 (Fall 2019): 285-316.
2018
Barry Read, “Building Mulholland Highway: The Road to Mulholland Drive. Part I: The Campaign, Part II: Construction, Part III: After the Celebration.” Spring, Summer, and Fall (1999).
2017
Cherstin M. Lyon, “Portals and Praxis in Japanese American Public History,” Southern California Quarterly 98, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 259-274.
2016
Natalia Molina, “The Importance of Place and Place-Makers in the Life of a Los Angeles Community: What Gentrification Erases from Echo Park,” Southern California Quarterly 97, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 69-111
2015
Lon Kurashige, “Re-Thinking Anti-Immigrant Racism: Lessons from the Los Angeles Vote on the 1920 Alien Land Law,” Southern California Quarterly 95, no. 3 (2013): 265-83.
2013
Thomas G. Andrews, “Toward an Environmental History of the Book: The Nature of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s Works,” Southern California Quarterly 93, no. 1 (2011): .
2011
Scott Zesch, “Prelude to a Massacre: Chinese Los Angeles in 1870-1871,” Southern California Quarterly 90, no. 2 (2008): .
2006
Stephen Aron, “The After Lives of Lewis and Clark,” Southern California Quarterly 87, no. 1 (2005): .
2004
Frances Lomas Feldman, “Human Services in the City of Angels, 1850-2000, Parts 1-3.” Southern California Quarterly “Part 1: 1850-1920” 85, no. 2 (2003): , “Part 2: 1920s-1960s” 85, no. 3 (2003):
2003
Gary Marmorstein, “Steel and Slurry: Dr. Philip M. Lovell, Architectural Patron,” Southern California Quarterly 84, no. 3-4 (2002): .
2001
Abraham Hoffman, “Water Famine or Water Needs: Los Angeles and Population Growth, 1896-1905,” Southern California Quarterly 82, no. 3 (2000): .
2000
Gloria R. Lothrop, “Unwelcome in Freedom’s Land: The Impact of World War II on Italian Americans in Southern California,” Southern California Quarterly 81, no. 4 (1999): .
1999
John Boessenecker, “California Bandidos: Social Bandits or Sociopaths?,” Southern California Quarterly 80, no. 4 (1998): .
1998
, “The FBI’s Secret File on César Chávez,” Southern California Quarterly 78, no. 4 (1996): .
1997
Jane Apostol, ““Mary Emily Foy: Miss Los Angeles Herself,” Southern California Quarterly 78, no 2 (1996): 1
1996
J. David Rogers, “A Man, a Dam and a Disaster: Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam,” Southern California Quarterly 77, no. 1-2 (1995): .
1994
Judson A. Grenier, “Growing Together for a Century: Southern California and the Title Insurance and Trust Company,” Southern California Quarterly 75, no. 3-4 (1993):
1993
John M. Allswang, “Tom Bradley of Los Angeles,” Southern California Quarterly 74, no. 1 (1992): .
1992
Kerwin L. Klein, “The William Keys Ranch: Settlement on the Twentieth-Century Desert,” Southern California Quarterly 73, no. 4 (1991): .
1991
Salome Hernandez, “No Settlement Without Women: Three Spanish California Settlement Schemes, 1790-1800,” Southern California Quarterly 72, no. 3 (1990): .
1990
Gloria R. Lothrop, ““Strength Made Stronger: The Role of Women in Southern California Philanthropy,” Southern California Quarterly 71, no. 2-3 (1989): .
1989
William M. Mason, “Adobe Interiors in Spanish California,” Southern California Quarterly 70, no. 3 (1988):
